Of Leaving And Being Left
by Talis Quia
Summary: After a long summerbreak Max and Ray are suddenly taller than Kai. It hurts him. It hurts so much that he's starting to shut himself off. Pushed out of his position as leader he drowns in pain too unbearable to feel. Yet nobody notices that until...
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Beyblade.**

**Note: My first fic! Enjoy!**

**Rating: R, because of violence and swearing. **

**Of Leaving And Being Left**

**_By Travis Quia_**

_The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends. _

_-Friedrich Nietzsche_

**Chapter One **

The fear and the fearless went hand in hand that afternoon, all blaming me for not doing my homework. The fearless was my dear leader Kai Hiwatari, ever present like a black hawk, glaring at me whether I knew I was doing something wrong or did it without knowledge. He was persistent when it came to my grades. He wanted only the best, not even considering that I wasn't the mind wonder he seemed to be. His own grades perfect, he kept on terrorising us – namely Max, me and Ray – into good work. If we didn't work hard, he stared. Oh and boy did he stare.

His eyes are a red shade that looked like dried blood, if dried blood were red (dried blood is black). His hair is freaky, considering that I never even once saw him dying it and so concluded that it was natural the duel colored way it was. However, there is an undeniable bright side to all of this – Kai's small. He's almost as small as I am. It came as a shock, the last summer after vacation. Ray and Max had both been away to beaches, beneath a sunny sunny sun – as I could easily see when I looked at their dark skin – and the sunny sunny sun had made them grow to tall tall man. Whereas me and Kai had stayed the way we were, goggling disbelievingly at the other two, feeling miserable, small, childish: _unmanly_. At least I did. Kai probably didn't… or he hid it very well,that sly bastard.

Anyway, they were _both_ taller than Kai, which shocked us all immensely. _Nobody_ would have believed that Kai'd be second smallest in our group, before then. We had been sincere believers in the dark powers of bastards like him. He should have at least been taller than _Max_. Max, little happy cheerful smiling Max had turned awfully man-like. Once there had been a time in which I was the one who had to go get everyone tickets for the horror movie and Kai had been the one to assist me if things went wrong saying his line 'Oh, he's just small for his age'. However, things went dramatically wrong within just one vacation and so the two of us had to look _up_ to our friends. It was disconcerting to say the least.

However, he still made us do our homework, even if he was smaller than two of the team. He had a way to reason everyone off their shoes. Ray and Max certainly didn't complain once and practically ran to do everything he said, or rather _muttered_ in his special case. Maybe they were just nice to him because of his height. If he had known my thoughts went along that lines he would have certainly thrown me off a cliff, or something even nicer. The man was revengeful. Sadly, that very man also knew that I was the only one who resisted his muttering and didn't do what he wanted me to.

"Tyson, I've been talking to your teachers-"

"You _what!_ How did you do that? I mean, are you even authorized to talk to my teachers? You aren't my dad or something!" I started and might as well continued till I hit a spot that made Kai wince. So he didn't like to be called dad? Oh well…

"I'm_ not_ your dad, no. Ask Ray over there,_ he_ might be a good dad." He snapped at me and I leaned back because I was scared he might bite my head off. Thankfully Kai's too cool to bite. He would never do that. "He certainly _looks _like a dad." Kai growled. "He certainly seems to look like _my_ dad, or am I mistaken Kon?" He asked dangerously silent, glaring over at Ray, which made the poor guy wince.

"What?" I asked.

"Well…Ray over there makes people think that he's my freaking _father!_"

"Uh, I'm sure he doesn't _want_ to do that Kai…" Max tried to reason. However, it was _Kai_'s choice whether there was reason or not. If _he_ didn't saw reason, reason might be standing there in yellow big capital letters, but nobody would be able to see it. Kai could_ influence_ people.

"Yeah, just tell the _people_ that!" Kai continued bellowing.

"Man, he's not the one to blame for your lack of height." Max continued to reason, rudely overstepping the rule that had been burned into our skulls after the first month of training with him. _Do Not Argue If He Can't See Reason_. Probably an effect of him getting so tall and strong. It certainly didn't seem dangerous to them anymore to talk back, not now that they weren't getting scared just by Kai's appearance. It had always held all of us at bay. And now that it was gone hell broke lose.

"Anyway, you could go through as my dad too. I mean, look at us, I've even got your hair!" I tried to get him to cool off but it only seemed to make everything worse. "You're taller than _me._" I added, but it was useless. He stopped glaring at us and suddenly the temperature seemed to drop a few degrees because his eyes turned icy. Within one single moment our connection seemed to cut off, like a ray of light, all the friendship was gone. It was replaced by the cold indifference that had been there when we first met by the river. Kai and me battling. I had lost. That was what warmed his eyes. Victory had always been the reasons why he warmed up to us, more and more the better he was or rather; the more distance he had put between himself and us.

As long as he was best everything was peachy. Sometimes later he had realized that he could even lose because our strong team would as a whole still win. But it was the same as before, Kai was just choosing the better side. And now he had lost. Twice, once to Ray and once, which was even more horrible, to Max, the weakest member of the Bladebreakers. And the team he had lost for earlier had taunted him for his other weakness. It was too much. _Unacceptable_.

"I'm in my room." He said coldly. He'd shut himself off again. Pushed all of his thoughts out of himself and switched into defensive mode. He wasn't capable of talking anymore. There wouldn't be anymore arguing – he had been hurt and he had been hurt so deeply that he couldn't afford getting hurt more than he already was. It was self defence, because if Kai wouldn't shut off every now and then the force of his feelings would cut through his soul and leave him dead.

Kai was sensitive, but only to the bad side of people. He never took any notice if someone told him how good he had done something. He only saw his faults. His faults, and even if they weren't many, they were there. Sometimes it seemed to me as though he was searching for another fault that he could get hurt over. His grandfather had beaten it into him. The old man practically made him believe that there was nothing worse than being imperfect. Nothing, absolutely nothing came close to failing…

He closed the door behind himself, almost as careful as a scientist might handle a dangerous liquid, and left us standing there in silence.

_He's thought himself dead again. _

The silence seemed dark, like a black hole, trying to suck us in, trying to get us. But I believed in moving, like I still do, so I acted before thought could cross my way and ran after him. He hadn't locked the door and so I opened it and saw him sitting on the bed, leaning against the wall behind him, staring straight ahead. He was shivering. I could tell, the door was close to his bed and so was I.

"You're shuddering like a leave in the storm!" I cried out in shock. "Are you alright?" I asked, because I knew he wasn't.

"Get out."

"And you're as white as a sheet, come on Kai, we've got to get you to the hospital or you might faint on me!" I continued, in hysterics not listening to his mad talk.

"Shut up and get the hell out."

"I've never before seen you so…sick!" I declared.

"_Fuck off._" That jerked me out of my concern. Kai looked almost aggressively weak, but when I saw his eyes I stepped back. They were glimmering with an intensity that scared me. "When I feel like shit, I look like shit. It's always been that way, so _leave me the hell alone_."

_But I couldn't_. Pain radiated from Kai like waves. I _couldn't_. He looked like as though someone had pushed him into icy water and not let him get out for days. I _couldn't_ leave him. That's just it. Kai needed privacy, like I needed company. There would always be one left broken in that game. Usually it was me.

But…I couldn't go.

Not after I had seen the scars of cuts on his right wrist. Not after I had seen the blood on the knife in his left hand. Not after I had seen the tears in his eyes.

I couldn't leave, because he hated me.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own Beyblade.**

**Note: Ah, I noticed that nobody reviewed. I guess that's not a good sign. Maybe I should delete this. **

**Rating: R, because of violence and swearing. **

**Of Leaving And Being Left**

**_By Travis Quia_**

_If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. _

_-Friedrich Nietzsche_

**Chapter Two **

I have a lot of relatives. Loads, and loads, and loads of them, all trying to be best in ignoring me. They are all over the world. In almost every state I can be sure to have at least one, and in some I have twenty. On Christmas they don't send me cards or presents, they don't call me on my birthday and they never ask for me_ if_ they call. They ask for my brother. My brother gets many presents, has visited a lot of those relatives I never once saw and knows languages I don't, because he stayed there for some time.

That's because I'm an accident.

My relatives don't hate me, they just don't know of me. My father has hidden me safely when he decided to bring me to my 'grandfather'. That grandfather is an outcast of the family, he's stopped talking to them ever since he went to jail. I don't know how the hell such a nice old lunatic had made it to jail, but he sure did. I found evidence of that in the attic. There are photos of his cell and him and some of his friends in there, playing chess. Some even show him running at a lake, probably trying to stay fit. He sure did that. At the age of eighty he's still as agile as he was with eight.

Sometimes I wonder how it could be that such an accident like me turned out to have such a perfect life. It's really unfair, if you know that my relatives are rich but will never be as rich as me, with all the money I won just by blading. They'd probably cry over it if they knew about me. Or not. I really didn't meet most of them even once, so it would be stupid to think that I knew what they were like.

Sometimes my father visits and then he doesn't say anything about me being an accident. He's a good guy, even if he makes the wrong choices every once in a while. He tried to give me the best home he could think of, sadly that hadn't been with him in Egypt, digging out old stuff, but with my grandfather, who could play chess and knew of Kendo. However, it was alright since I was an accident.

My mother had had blue hair like mine. She had travelled a lot, and she loved cats. I love cats too. Some people remind me of cats. Sly, silent people, who take what they need when they need it...

The scene in Kai's bedroom felt a bit like an accident, too. Like a thing that wasn't supposed to happen, but happened anyway because fate wanted it, and what fate wanted fate got, like water is wet. At some times, however, water didn't feel wet, and so did fate seem like luck at that moment. I embraced it with open arms, receiving stabbings that made me even more confident. I'm desperate at times.

"Give me the knife." I demanded and the force in my voice surprised even myself. "I'm not going out until I have that _fucking_ knife in my hand." Kai was staring at the knife. He blinked, and looked as though he just woke up from a deep dream. "You hate me? So what? I'm sure you could do worse."

"Go away." He said, but the scary anger behind his voice was gone and he sounded more like he wanted _me_ to tell _him_ what to do.

"Give me the knife, you have no _right_ to kill yourself."

"I…" Kai looked dreamily at the blood on his wrist and shook his head to clear his thoughts. "I have no right to _not _kill myself." He finally stated, like the solution to a simple question involving numbers rather than feelings. "I've failed…" He continued, his eyes once more glancing over with that suffocating anger. "I didn't even _intend_ to kill myself you moron!" He suddenly spat out, glaring at me.

"You can't think clearly, in what condition are you to tell me that you've not tried to commit suicide?"

"I've already been trying to think clearly, and then _you_ burst in!"

"Sure…"

"Pain cleans my thoughts, you won't understand, you are nothing like me."

"I'm _glad_ that I'm nothing like you, I'd want _everyone_ to be nothing like you, maybe the world would be a better place then!" He suddenly put the knife onto his wrist again and cut, with me watching horrified. When I was recovered from my shock I quickly fetched it out of his firm grip. "You bloody _idiot_! Hating yourself like that…sometimes I wish _I_ was the one hurting you, not you yourself!" He started to laugh at that.

"You're just as crazy as I remember you." He said chuckling. "But I'm much more crazy so that doesn't matter at all, doesn't do any harm to no one…" Kai said and suddenly I realized with a start that he'd probably lost too much blood, so he couldn't think rational anymore. He needed help, and that now. Though he would have probably needed help all of his life, just had he always been too proud to ask for it. Like a phoenix that couldn't be reborn, was he caged in a world without the freedom of killing himself, like those free and mighty birds did.

I could only see the pain from afar, that must have haunted him all of his life, not being able to do what his nature wanted from him, because he knew what it meant for his mind, since he wasn't a phoenix in body, only in thought.

It was probably the mighty bird's way to hurt itself whenever it thought it had done something wrong, to be reborn and know better. But Kai couldn't do that. Kai'd feel dirty all of his life, not able to give his soul a rest and yet not fully restraining himself from self inflicting pain either. It was hopeless and so much so that I broke too, just a bit and just for him.


End file.
